An Emergencies Ministry member walks at the site of a Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777 plane crash near the settlement of Grabovo in the Donetsk region, July 17, 2014. REUTERS/Maxim Zmeyev

KIEV (Reuters) - Armed separatists are hindering search efforts at the site in eastern Ukraine where a Malaysian airliner came down on Thursday, the head of Ukraine’s emergency services said.

“The search work is difficult because we are talking about a big radius ... but also because armed terrorists who are on the spot are hampering things,” Serhiy Bochkovsky told journalists. He gave no details.